There is known a video character generator which is able to place a color gradient across the surface of the generated and displayed characters. In the prior art this gradient is always parallel or perpendicular to the raster scan lines, and makes a linear transition from one color to another across the entire surface of the character. Every rectangular region, whether a character, word, line or page, has the same start and the same end colors. The color of each pixel on the surface of the character is given by: EQU .chi..sub.(x,y) =.chi..sub.start +((y-a).times..chi..sub..DELTA.) (1)
The appearance of this type of gradient on a display is shown in FIG. 1 and its inflexibilities highlighted in FIG. 2. Greater freedom in positioning the generated characters and coloring them is necessary.